• by David Goetzl  @dgoetzl, April 2, 2009

It's not hard to find a network or agency executive willing to blast Nielsen for just about anything. So, it begs the question of whether something was going on when one executive mistakenly referred to Nielsen's product placement operation IAG as AIG this week.

 

 

Was it a Freudian slip?

Speculation aside, any tracking that IAG has been doing about the effectiveness of brand placements in the NCAA basketball tournament is likely to show that marketers have had some slam dunks.

Exhibit A could be VitaminWater. Last fall, parent Coca-Cola made the decision to drop its Dasani brand's logo from the cups and coolers on the March Madness sidelines in favor of VitaminWater.

The impact may wear off in later years, but the site of a purple-and-white VitaminWater cup in a player's hand as he takes a seat on the bench has been a magnet for attention. Viewers have grown so used to players holding green Gatorade cups -- Dasani never seemed to permeate the consciousness -- that the sheer newness of it stands out.

From VitaminWater's standpoint, it's too bad that basketball players don't drench their coach with the cooler after a big win as they do in football with orange Gatorade buckets -- which have become synonymous with the act. Otherwise, VitaminWater would have received even more prominent exposure -- with the novelty of the purple-and-white colors again standing out.

Along those lines, one marketer that did benefit from exposure after a team won was Werner Co. Just in time for spring as some Americans start to fix up the home, its ladders came to the screen.

What features do consumers most want when they ponder what to climb on when cleaning the gutters? Height and sturdiness.

As players and coaches needed a lift to cut down the nets last weekend after their teams earned trips to the Final Four, the Werner logo could clearly be seen on the ladders used.

Height? A basket is 10 feet tall. Sturdiness? Big-time college players have some bulk.

In fairness, the ladders used by the regional champions aren't the models found at Home Depot. They are specially designed for the occasion. But the brand attributes were clear.

Less successful in grabbing viewer attention were two recent integrations on respective reality series, VH1's "Tough Love" and Bravo's "Make Me A Supermodel." Alltel Wireless phones were weaved in the first show, while there was a plug for Bloomingdale's via a photo shoot on the latter (two of the top product placements of the week, according to measurement firm iTVX).

Cell phones have been a staple of reality TV brand integrations since season one of "The Apprentice," if not before. And a slew of fashion-type brands have been attached to modeling opportunities on female-targeted shows for some time.

Neither offered a winning novelty factor.

Product	Show	Q-Ratio
Pier 1 Imports	The Chopping Block	1.4891
Rolling  Rock	Trust Me	1.2290
Bloomingdale's	Make Me A Supermodel	0.7268
Old Spice	NCIS	0.4072
Alltel	Tough Love	0.3630

 

Click here to view these placements. Data and analysis provided by iTVX.